-
Nexus Graphica: a column by Rick Klaw and Mark London Williams
Mark London Williams was lucky enough to see Avengers on the Disney lot somewhere in early/mid- April. The film's a lot of fun, the set pieces are terrific (the battle scenes have a nice logic to them -- in, of course, a "superhero movie" way -- as well as a good sense of staging and physical space, which is rare enough in action films these days), the banter between superheroes is good and it's the best Hulk movie yet made.
-
War in Heaven by Gavin Smith
War in Heaven is the sequel to Veteran, and includes a few pages to explain what has gone before, then it's back down the rabbit hole that is the author's plot. Veteran was a moody shooter's paradise, boasting an attitude like a Rottweiler with toothache. The follow up continues right where things left off, and maintains the style. Yes, there are some moments of humour, but these are slight and of an acquired taste. His technique is to keep hurling material at the reader, trebuchet style, never letting up.
-
New Arrivals compiled by Neil Walsh
New and forthcoming books this time include the latest from Jonathan Carroll, Mark Chadbourn, Ari Marmell, Karen Marie Moning, Christopher Moore, and many others.
-
Dadaoism (An Anthology) edited by Justin Isis and Quentin S. Crisp
According to one of the editors, the term "dadaoism" is a portmanteau of "dadaism" and "daoism." Fine enough, but we're not any wiser. Having now read the anthology, which includes a total of twenty-six contributions (short stories, novellas, poems) Mario's own feeling is that "dadaoism" is another synonym for "weirdness." The book features a bunch of weird material and what really matters to most is whether it's valuable stuff or not. Weird fiction, per se, is neither good nor bad.
-
Unchained by Sharon Ashwood
With a custody battle coming up, Ashe Carver, monster killer, has switched from stakes to a job at the public library. But fate has other things in mind. Ashe find herself chasing a demon rabbit that escaped from the supernatural castle along with Captain Reynard, one of the castle's guards. But there's more than that going on here. Someone has stolen Reynard's soul, part of what bound him to the castle; a vampire king wants to impregnate Ashe since her sister, Holly, had a vampire's baby; and there's a dark fae prince who seems to have his finger in every pot.
-
Pathfinder Tales: Death's Heretic by James L. Sutter
Salim Ghadalfa is a warrior who has a dark past he would rather forget. He is a man who has his own religion, yet works for a church he loathes, and takes on many dangerous missions. One is where he has to accompany an aristocrat's daughter while he searches the length and breadth of Thuvia for the answers to why the man's soul was so ruthlessly captured.
-
The Furnace by Timothy S. Johnston
In the distant year 2401, humanity has spread out across the solar system, governed by the suppressive, authoritarian Confederate Combined Forces. When murder is suspected on SOLEX One, a remote research facility orbiting the sun, the CCF Security Division dispatches Lieutenant Kyle Tanner, its best homicide detective to investigate. But more murders occur in the wake of Tanner's arrival, including an attempt on Tanner's own life. In the investigation that proceeds, Kyle uncovers a shocking threat that could not only claim the rest of the station crew, but humanity itself.
-
Tooth and Nail by Jennifer Safrey
Amateur boxer Gemma Cross has quit her job as a pollster to prevent any potential controversies from affecting her boyfriend, Avery McCormack's race for the House of Representatives. On the heels of this decision, Gemma learns a long-kept secret about herself: she is part fae and part human. As a half-human, the fae have called upon her to become a warrior for their cause to return to the Olde Way.
-
Burning Days by Glenn Grant
One of the perhaps unexpected impacts of personal technology on our lives is a hyperlocalism. The futurism of days gone by has often emphasised the abolition of distance and the opening up of a global arena of action for all of us, but the smart phone and the social network seem to be instead opening up space for the nearby, the quotidian local. Science fiction has often tended to emphasise universal dreams.
-
Theme Planet by Andy Remic
Dexter Colls is a policeman on holiday with his family on Theme Planet. He thinks he has found a great place to take a break from Earth life, but when his family goes missing, he doesn't know where to look until he unearths a conspiracy. This is what gets his policeman's instincts off and running, and this is also where he is out to find the culprits come hell or high water.
-
Watching the Future: a column by Derek Johnson
As Derek and his family walked out of Houston's many movie theaters on Westheimer Blvd., he was absolutely certain that his life couldn't get any better. It was December 1978, and, impossibly, a movie he was convinced couldn't possibly exist not only proved extant but also exceeded every conceivable expectation he might have had. He had just seen Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. And it breathed life into the four-color sequential art he had been reading for over four years.
-
Welcome to the Greenhouse edited by Gordon Van Gelder
Paul is coming to the conclusion that the worst disservice ever done to "science fiction" was saddling it with that name. In particular, the "science" part. It raises expectations and assumptions on behalf of both readers and writers that the genre mostly cannot, and should not, even attempt to fulfil. As long as we expect fiction to incorporate scientific rigor, we are doomed to disappointment. And if we expect science fiction writers to be better qualified than any other reasonably well-informed member of the public to comment on the scientific issues facing us today, we are deceiving ourselves.
-
Babylon 5.1: TV reviews by Rick Norwood
Best bet for genre tv in May is the second season of Sherlock, which aired in the UK in January. All three episodes come to PBS in May. On the other hand, if you are willing to wait until May 22, you can get whole series on DVD and Blu-ray. It's not really science fiction, but it feels like it is. RIck also gives a list of what to watch in May.
-
The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross
Besides the obvious and delightful spy-geek-Chuthluian horror cocktail that Charles Stross shakes together in his Laundry series, there's a bit of Stargate to it, what with the openings of gates into otherwhere and heroic types stepping through them. It has been that way since the beginning, when our man from the Laundry, a geek turned applied demonologist and secret agent, stepped through a hole in space to rescue the damsel in distress.
-
Monstrous Creatures by Jeff VanderMeer and Jar Jar Binks Must Die... and Other Observations about Science Fiction Movies by Daniel M. Kimmel
You love the fantastic, it is in your blood. You have devoted a substantial part of your life to it, a part friends and colleagues have sometimes suggested has been wasted. Sometimes you wonder if they are right. You have poured your blood out through your pen but you find yourself unregarded, unrewarded and out of pocket. You are invested... so you want a return on your investment. How do you crystallise this labour into something that means something? How can you -- whisper it -- moneterise it? The answer is, of course, a book.
|
